Embodiments of the present invention relate to a semiconductor device and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a semiconductor device having through-wafer conductive vias and a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device having through-wafer conductive vias.
Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) has led to the creation of a wide variety of small and fragile electrical components such as sensor technologies. Presently, these MEMS sensors are not typically compatible with standard integrated circuit (IC) packaging technologies because of their fragility. Some have considered going to wafer level packaging for such MEMS sensors, where the MEMS sensor is encapsulated as part of typical clean room processing by a bonding method such as using direct wafer bonding or anodic bonding of a glass or silicon protective cap over the MEMS sensor.
FIG. 1 shows one prior art method for mounting a MEMS sensor 90 to a silicon wafer or substrate 20 and enclosing the MEMS sensor 90 with a glass or silicon cap 80. As can be seen, an electrical lead 97 is run across the surface of the substrate 20 from the MEMS sensor or other electrical component 90. Routing the electrical connection through the cap 80 is not trivial and the interface 83 between the cap 80 and the electrical connector 97 often leads to an imperfect seal or problems with conductivity of the electrical connector.
It is desirable to provide a semiconductor device having through-wafer conductive vias for connecting to an electrical component such as a MEMS sensor from beneath the semiconductor substrate. It is also desirable to form the through-wafer conductive vias using the semiconductor substrate material itself so as to minimize a fill process.